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Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > What would break first: sword or mail? Reply to topic
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Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 3:27 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I don't know how his test piece was quilted but I'm guessing it was more like a bed cover than a jack. Martial quilting tends to be dense; the end result is fairly rigid. A 30-layer jack can stop a lot more than 80J from an arrow.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Stephen Curtin




Location: Cork, Ireland
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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 3:58 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
I don't know how his test piece was quilted but I'm guessing it was more like a bed cover than a jack. Martial quilting tends to be dense; the end result is fairly rigid. A 30-layer jack can stop a lot more than 80J from an arrow.


I don't doubt that a 30 layer jack was a very effective piece of armour. As I said I haven't read The Knight and the Blast Furnace, so I could be misrepresenting the data. Even if the jack was not as densely quilted as a stand alone textile armour should be (and so not as stiff), it would still be too thick to simulate an arming garment.

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Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 5:28 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Agreed. Arming garments were not much thicker than a sweater. IMO the mail would have been just as resistant if it were layered over a much lighter garment.
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Stephen Curtin




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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 6:24 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Agreed. Arming garments were not much thicker than a sweater. IMO the mail would have been just as resistant if it were layered over a much lighter garment.


Pity that wasn't tested though.

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Mart Shearer




Location: Jackson, MS, USA
Joined: 18 Aug 2012

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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 10:04 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Mail is pretty easy to cut if you rest it against a rigid surface.


Which makes it difficult to explain why they would wear cervellieres beneath mail coifs, or plates beneath their hauberks.



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Jeffrey Faulk




Location: Georgia
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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 12:30 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Mart Shearer wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Mail is pretty easy to cut if you rest it against a rigid surface.


Which makes it difficult to explain why they would wear cervellieres beneath mail coifs, or plates beneath their hauberks.


Well... if they were available, did not add significantly to the weight or impair movement, and increased protection... why not?

Plus, while they may not have been aware of the fact that rigid protection distributes force differently from soft protection like mail and fabric, they wouldn't have been unaware of the empirical results. Say your fellow-knight takes a mace blow to the head without flinching due to wearing a cervelliere underneath his mail hood, while another knight without one is outright killed despite wearing mail. It doesn't take much to figure that out!

Additionally: You can probably cut through mail if you put it on top of a two-by-four on a stump, sure. But cutting through mail that someone else is wearing, while trying NOT to get cut, and simultaneously trying to cut YOU in return... is probably quite another story, rigid protection underneath that mail or not. That's probably what Dan meant, would be my guess.
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Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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PostPosted: Sun 07 Aug, 2016 6:21 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Mart Shearer wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
Mail is pretty easy to cut if you rest it against a rigid surface.


Which makes it difficult to explain why they would wear cervellieres beneath mail coifs, or plates beneath their hauberks.

The primary threat was from spears and arrows, not swords.

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